Manufactured PANIC: projected Antarctic ice shelf melting "may surpass intensities associated with ice shelf collapse"

That is an excellent thought; “Climate Change” is more aptly titled “Climate Fear”.
Or maybe even more aptly titled “Climate Fear due to Lack of Common Sense”.

How about Cape Fear (in California, no less!)?

Ice losing mass below freezing is due to sublimation and/or ablation not melting. Sublimation is however an endothermic reaction which requires a heat input. Sublimation at very much below zero C is a pretty slow process at normal atmospheric pressure., freeze drying processes usually happen at reduced pressure because of this.

I can melt ice at a specific frequency, if the air warms it is only because of heat transfer from the melting ice. And or water vapor that is in the air… depending on temperature and sometimes pressure.

Was that a rhetorical question?

“Sea levels have been rising at around 1.8 mm per year for at least the last 100 years and show no sign of acceleration.”
Ooops! Your assertion becomes no more real by repitition:

I notice you forgot to bold the word “possibly” in … “indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated “

I don’t have a problem with the authors, the problem is that you did not carefully read the exact nature of the conclusions of the study, You need to find a better study , one that studies global tide gauges rather than simply studying U.S. tide gauges. The problem you have is that you are quoting misleading studies, whose real conclusions do not support what you think they support.

The authors did not claim that global sea levels were decelerating. They said, “and indeed why global sea level has possibly decelerated for at least the last 80 years.”
…
POSSIBLY.
I posted: “The paper does not make any conclusion with regard to global sea levels.”
…
My claim stands.
…
The authors did not write a misleading study. They looked at U.S. tide gauges.
…
However, your post “Furthermore, this peer reviewed paper shows that sea level rise is actually decelerating.” is misleading because it fails to mention that the paper does not make a claim to global sea levels.

Ooops…I meant that for Steve Jones

Maybe I should keep it as “Idiot”.

Here is a list of U.S. NOAA tide gauge stations globally.
Anomaly Count/Year
Search US Stations
Pacific Ocean
Johnston Atoll
Midway Atoll
Apra Harbor, Guam
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kwajalein
Chuuk
Wake Island
West Coast
Alaska
Washington
Oregon
California
Hawaii
Gulf Coast
Texas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Alabama
Florida
East Coast
Maine
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Delaware
Pennsylvania
Maryland
District of Columbia
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
Florida
Atlantic Ocean
Bermuda, Atlantic Ocean
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Lime Tree Bay
Charlotte Amalie
San Juan
Magueyes Island

Steve,
What exactly are you trying to point out? Please re state your position and what the argument is about/ Maybe that will clear things up.

Steve Jones
Here is a study abstract by some supporters of CAGW who concur that there has been a decrease in sea level rise since 2004. Other than that, I don’t know the issue well enough to make a good argument about it because there is a lot of conflicting information. But I do not think the Earth is warming outside of natural variability. Arguing about the sea level is a muddled area and at this point, with all the various inconsistent info, is not worth it.
Thanks..
Dahlquist
The rate of sea-level rise
Anny Cazenave, Habib-Boubacar Dieng, Benoit Meyssignac, Karina von Schuckmann, Bertrand Decharme & Etienne Berthier
Nature Climate Change (2014) Doi:10.1038/Nclimate2159 3 March 2014
[note bolding, italics, and comments added] Abstract: Present-day sea-level rise is a major indicator of climate change1. Since the early 1990s, sea level rose at a mean rate of ~3.1 mm yr−1 (refs 2, 3). However, over the last decade a slowdown of this rate, of about 30%, has been recorded4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It coincides with a plateau in Earth’s mean surface temperature evolution, known as the recent pause in warming1, 9, 10, 11, 12. Here we present an analysis based on sea-level data from the altimetry record of the past ~20 years that separates interannual natural variability in sea level from the longer-term change probably related to anthropogenic global warming. The most prominent signature in the global mean sea level interannual variability is caused by El Niño–Southern Oscillation, through its impact on the global water cycle13, 14,15, 16. We find that when correcting [using the magic of models and unwarranted assumptions] for interannual variability, the past decade’s slowdown of the global mean sea level disappears, leading to a similar rate of sea-level rise (of 3.3 ± 0.4 mm yr−1) during the first and second decade of the altimetry era. Our results confirm the need for quantifying and further removing from the climate records the short-term natural climate variability if one wants to extract the global warming signal10
• Methods• References• Acknowledgements• Author information• Supplementary information
Precisely estimating present-day sea-level rise caused by anthropogenic global warming is a major issue that allows assessment of the process-based models developed for projecting future sea level1. Sea-level rise is indeed one of the most threatening consequences of ongoing global warming, in particular for low-lying coastal areas that are expected to become more vulnerable to flooding and land loss. As these areas often have dense populations, important infrastructures and high-value agricultural and bio-diverse land, significant impacts such as increasingly costly flooding or loss of freshwater supply are expected, posing a risk to stability and security17, 18. However, sea level also responds to natural climate variability, producing noise in the record that hampers detection of the global warming signal. Trends of the satellite altimetry-based global mean sea level (GMSL) are computed over two periods: the period 1994–2002 and the period 2003–2011 of the observed slowdown (Fig. 1a). GMSL time series from five prominent groups processing satellite altimetry data for the global ocean are considered (Methods). During recent years (2003–2011), the GMSL rate was significantly lower than during the 1990s (average of 2.4 mm yr−1 versus 3.5 mm yr−1). This is observed by all processing groups (Fig. 1a). The temporal evolution of the GMSL rate (computed over five-year-long moving windows, starting in 1994 and shifted by one year) was nearly constant during the 1990s, whereas the rate clearly decreased by ~30% after ~2003 (Fig. 2a). This decreasing GMSL rate coincides with the pause observed over the last decade in the rate of Earth’s global mean surface temperature increase9, 10, an observation exploited [very unscientific choice of words] by climate sceptics to refute global warming and its attribution to a steadily rising rate of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It has been suggested that this so-called global warming hiatus11 results from El Niño–Southern Oscillation- (ENSO-) related natural variability of the climate system10 and is tied to La Niña-related cooling of the equatorial Pacific surface11, 12. In effect, following the major El Niño of 1997/1998, the past decade has favoured La Niña episodes (that is, ENSO cold phases, reported as sometimes more frequent and more intensive than the warm El Niño events, a sign of ENSO asymmetry19). The interannual (that is, detrended) GMSL record of the altimetry era seems to be closely related to ENSO, with positive/negative sea-level anomalies observed during El Niño/La Niña events2. Recent studies have shown that the short-term fluctuations in the altimetry-based GMSL are mainly due to variations in global land water storage (mostly in the tropics), with a tendency for land water deficit (and temporary increase of the GMSL) during El Niño events13, 14and the opposite during La Niña15, 16. This directly results from rainfall excess over tropical oceans (mostly the Pacific Ocean) and rainfall deficit over land (mostly the tropics) during an El Niño20event. The opposite situation prevails during La Niña. The succession of La Niña episodes during recent years has led to temporary negative anomalies of several millimetres in the GMSL (ref. 15), possibly causing the apparent reduction of the GMSL rate of the past decade. This reduction has motivated the present study. From seasonal to centennial time scales, the two main contributions to GMSL variability and change come from ocean thermal expansion and ocean mass. Owing to water mass conservation in the climate system, sources of global ocean mass variations are land ice masses, land water storage and atmospheric water vapour content. Studies have shown that ENSO-driven interannual variability in the global water cycle strongly impacts land water storage12, 13, 14,15 and atmospheric water vapour21, hence ocean mass and GMSL.
Figure 1: GMSL trends during the 1994–2002 and 2003–2011 periods.
a, GMSL trends computed over two time spans (January 1994–December 2002 and January 2003–December 2011) using satellite altimetry data from five processing groups (see Methods for data sources). The mean GMSL trend (average of the five data sets) is also shown. b, Same as a but after correcting the GMSL for the mass and thermosteric interannual variability (nominal case). Corrected means that the interannual variability due to the water cycle and thermal expansion are quantitatively removed from each original GMSL time series using data as described in the text. Black vertical bars represent the 0.4 mm yr−1 uncertainty (ref. 2).
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Figure 2: GMSL rate over five-year-long moving windows.
a, Temporal evolution of the GMSL rate computed over five-year-long moving windows shifted by one year (start date: 1994). b, Temporal evolution of the corrected GMSL rate (nominal case) computed over five-year-long moving windows shifted by one year (start date: 1994). GMSL data from each of the five processing groups are shown.
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Here, we quantitatively estimate these interannual water mass contributions and remove them from the altimetry-based GMSL record, to isolate the longer-term signal caused by global warming (here, interannual refers to a temporal window in the range of one to five years, mainly ENSO-related, but not exclusively). To do this, two approaches are possible: estimate interannual land water storage plus atmospheric water vapour contributions; or directly estimate the interannual variability in global ocean mass. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) space mission directly measures ocean mass and land water storage variations but only since ~2003. Before GRACE, neither ocean mass nor land water storage variations can be directly computed from observations. However, the use of hydrological models developed for climate studies and water resource monitoring22 allows us to estimate the land water contribution since the beginning of the high-precision altimetry record. Both approaches are considered here. As a nominal case, we estimate the interannual land water contribution from a hydrological model (accounting for the atmospheric water vapour component) over the whole analysis time span (1994–2011). We also present as Supplementary Information three hybrid cases where the mass component is estimated as in the nominal case over 1994–2002 but replaced by GRACE data as of 2003. Data and models used to obtain the mass component are presented in the Methods and Supplementary Information. Detrended altimetry-based GMSL records and interannual mass components over the January 1994–December 2011 time span are shown in Fig. 3 (nominal case) and Supplementary Fig. 3(hybrid case 1; in the following, figures shown as Supplementary Information correspond to hybrid case 1). As illustrated in Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 3, the interannual GMSL signal mainly (but not exclusively) results from ENSO-driven water mass redistributions among the climate system reservoirs, with strong positive and negative GMSL anomalies during the 1997/1998 El Niño and 2011 La Niña, respectively. This raises two questions: what is the impact of ENSO-related (or, more generally, interannual) variability on the estimation of the GMSL trend; and can we separate the interannual natural variability from the longer-term global warming trend in the GMSL record?
Figure 3: Detrended GMSL, interannual mass and ‘mass plus thermosteric’ components.
Black curve: mean detrended GMSL time series (average of the five satellite altimetry data sets) from January 1994–December 2011 and associated uncertainty (in grey; based on the dispersion of each time series around the mean). Light blue curve: interannual mass component based on the ISBA/TRIP hydrological model for land water storage plus atmospheric water vapour component over January 1994–December 2011. The red curve is the sum of the interannual mass and thermosteric components. This is the signal removed from the original GMSL time series (nominal case). Vertical bars represent the uncertainty of the monthly mass estimate (of 1.5 mm; refs 22, 30; light blue bar) and monthly total contribution (mass plus thermosteric components; of 2.2 mm; refs 22, 28, 29, 30; red bar).
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To answer these questions we subtracted the interannual mass and thermosteric components from the GMSL record. Although the short-term GMSL fluctuations are mostly related to the global water cycle (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 3), thermal expansion also slightly contributes. Thus we also removed short-term variations in thermal expansion from the GMSL record (see Methods for information about the ocean temperature data used to compute thermal expansion and procedure applied to extract the corresponding interannual signal). Note that land ice also displays interannual mass variability1. However, adequate data to quantify it globally and for the whole altimetry period are presently lacking. The sum of interannual mass plus thermosteric components is also shown in Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 3, for both nominal and hybrid case 1. It is this signal that is removed from the GMSL record over the altimetry period. We recomputed the rate of the corrected GMSL time series over the same five-year-long moving windows (shifted by one year) as done previously. The temporal evolution of the corrected GMSL rate is shown in Fig. 2b and Supplementary Fig. 2b. The decreasing rate seen initially over the past decade has disappeared [it’s magic!]: the rate is now almost constant with time. Fig. 1b and Supplementary Fig. 1b show the corrected GMSL rates for the same two nine-year-long time spans as above, for each of the five altimetry data sets. The mean rate is also shown. The corrected mean rate now amounts to 3.3 ± 0.1 mm yr−1 over the two time intervals. The 0.1 mm yr−1 uncertainty is the formal error deduced from the dispersion around the mean. A more realistic uncertainty representing systematic errors affecting the altimetry-based GMSL rate (for example, owing to geophysical corrections applied to the altimetry data, and instrumental bias and drifts) would be rather closer to 0.4 mm yr−1 (ref. 2). However, this would not change our finding.
The result reported here shows that when removing from the GMSL time series the interannual variability mostly due to exchange of water between oceans, atmosphere and continents, with a smaller contribution from thermal expansion, there is no rate difference between the 1990s and the 2000s: the GMSL has almost linearly increased during the past 20 years. Although no GMSL acceleration is observed over this short time span, our result clearly advocates for no recent slowdown in global warming.[bogus conclusion]
Although it has been suggested that several decades of satellite altimetry-based GMSL would be needed to isolate the long-term global warming signal6, our result also shows that this may be already achievable by removing the (mainly ENSO-driven) interannual variability, a procedure that enhances the signal-to-noise ratio, as previously shown for the Earth’s global mean surface temperature evolution10. At present, a persistent positive energy imbalance between the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and the thermal radiation back to space is observed1, 8, 9, 12, 23. [No outgoing longwave IR radiation to space has increased over the past 62 years] The term missing energy9 is related to an apparent inconsistency between interannual variations in the net radiation imbalance inferred from satellite measurements and upper-ocean heating rate from in situ measurements9. Although progress has been achieved and inconsistencies reduced24, the puzzle of the missing energy remains12, raising the question of where the extra heat absorbed by the Earth is going9, 12. The results presented here will further encourage this debate as they underline the enigma between the observed plateau in Earth’s mean surface temperature and continued rise in the GMSL. The larger GMSL rate calculated during the past decade than previously believed would be compatible with a significant warming contribution from the deep ocean. Such a possibility was raised by recent studies on the ocean heat content, suggesting that ~30% of the ocean warming has occurred below 700 m (ref. 25). This heat may be sequestered into the deep ocean during decades of large ocean–atmosphere natural variability26, highlighting once more, as shown here, the role of short-term natural variability on longer-term change, probably associated with global warming.

db,
Thanks for the John Daly references. I’ll look into then.
I threw in a SLR abstract from Skeptical Science by an AGW group which supports a decrease in SLR but shows how muddy the issues are around it. I threw the Sh*t at the fan. Maybe the smell will lead him off your tracks ; ) . Single minded arguers always lose sight of the bigger picture.
Dahlquist

Steve,
Yes, i noted that it came from a post from Skeptical Science. Guess they picked it over, but it shows that the issue is muddy. I still don’t understand the point you are trying to make here. Please state your stance on AGW, the specifics of the point you are trying to make and where you think db is wrong and why this matters so much to you.
I do not understand it either. Maybe we are looking into it too far when you are simply stating that the study you are referring to is not complete because the study didn’t use data except from U.S. Data?

Sorry Steve.
Not my argument and not my area of interest to the extent that I want to get into arguing with you.

dbstealey: I did not say it was impossible to extract a recovery signal from the data if you really wanted to – only that it would be difficult and would reveal a desire to do so. Despite the sea ice minimum being the second lowest in recent history and the current anomaly being -1.5 million sq kilometers you still manage to see that as a recovery since it is larger that the exceptional 2012 minumum.

Wow, it’s looking really bad in the Arctic (lol). Prof. Wadhams – call your office!
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

Here’s another plot showing the “Arctic death spiral”. Mark Serreze, call your office!
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/icecover/icecover_current.png

If you look at the data on the sea ice page it would be very hard to conclude that Arctic sea ice was growing unless you really wanted to believe that. The trend is clearly down, the chart shown here shows it is frequenly below 2 sd of the 1981- 2010 mean. I see no evidence of growing. You need to be very selective to extract a growth signal from that data.
Now, the arguments about global sea levels look different – there seems to be evidence that the rates of increase levels are not rising, and some that they are. Point this out by all means. But to suggest recovery of Arctic sea ice in the face of evidence makes you appear to be selecting the data you use to fit your prefered theory.

“Every alarmist prediction that Arctic ice would disappear has been wrong.” That is odd, because most of them predict ice loss in the future, so they can’t have been wrong yet. Only the most extreme predictions included 2015, and then as an early point in a range.
From Wikipedia, “A 2006 paper predicted “near ice-free September conditions by 2040″.[14] Overland & Wang (2009) predicted that there would be an ice-free Arctic in the summer by 2037.[15] The same year Boé et al. found that the Arctic will probably be ice-free in September before the end of the 21st century.[16] A follow-up study concluded with the possibility of major sea ice loss within a decade or two.[17] The IPCC AR5 (for at least one scenario) estimates an ice-free summer might occur around 2050.[2] The Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA), released May 6, 2014, reports that the Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice free in summer before mid-century.” These are all quite a way in the future. There is no way that the claim “every alarmist predictions has been proved wrong” can be substantiated, unless you want to define alarmist as only those claims that predict ice-free arctic by 2015. That would leave all those others in the non-alarmist camp, so you might not want to do that.

dbstealey said: “Those are all natural cycles. Every alarmist prediction that Arctic ice would disappear has been wrong. When your side is 100.0% wrong, Chris, why are you still trying to promote the “ice” scare? You are hardly being honest about it.”
Except that isn’t true. Even the skeptic statement that Al Gore said the Arctic ice would be gone by 2013 is not true. Here’s exactly what he said: “Last September 21 (2007), as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.”
Al Gore quoted the conclusions of two papers, not 1. But skeptics always leave out the one that mentions 22 years. Why? Because that would prevent them from fully demonizing Al Gore – and we can’t have that! Here is another paper that states that summer ice will be gone by sometime between 2025 and 2050: http://www.livescience.com/28691-arctic-summer-ice-disappearing.html
So your statement that my side is 100% wrong on Arctic ice is false, db. Why are you not being honest?

dbstealey, You continue to use the phrase “deal with it” as if your points are absolute and final. But you can’t even defend your position properly. You send me to a Steve Goddard link. He lists some projections from the past, and some future ones. One says the Arctic could be ice free by 2030. You really should work on your reading comprehension, db – that paper has not been disprover. Another says Arctic ice could be gone by 2016 +/- 3 years, which means some time between 2013 and 2019. Another oops for you.
And of course, your base position is 100% false. You said “Every alarmist prediction that Arctic ice would disappear has been wrong.” I gave you a prediction that Arctic summer ice will disappear. It’s an Arctic ice prediction, no different than one that said 2013.
Now, if you meant to say “the predictions that Arctic ice would be completely gone by now have been proven false”, that is correct (although many say things like “could be gone by 2013” – skeptics conveniently remove the could be phrasing so they can attack the prediction. But that is a completely different statement. So, once again, your base position is false. Deal with it.

db, most of the predictions about Arctic sea ice are post 2015. There were a couple papers they said it MAY be gone by 2013. Skeptics repeat those over and over, ignoring the vast majority of papers that point to a future date. So your statement that ALL Arctic projections have been proven wrong is very misleading.
You mention that ALL AGW projections about droughts, etc have not come to pass. That is false. On 3 different occasions, I have posted a paper about the Australian heat wave of 2013. You have never refuted this paper, you just continue to ignore it. Here it is again: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-07/record-heat-virtually-impossible-without-climate-change-report/6077634
Lastly, regarding your proposed bet. Let’s look at the Arctic data, shall we? Here’s the plot: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2015/10/monthly_ice_09_NH.png Looking at the slope, the Arctic ice extent is declining by 1M km2 per 12 years. The lowest extent for 2015 was 4.63M km2. Therefore, continuing the plot yields a crossover in 55 years, or 2060. I’ll round down to 2050 to make it a nice even number and to give you the better odds. Shall we finalize our bet? The Arctic will be ice free by 12/31/49 is our bet. Deal?

dbstealey, “all scary predictions have failed to happen.” From this you do not find it scary that the Arctic may be ice free by 2016, since that has not yet failed to happen. From your earlier comments you clearly do not consider IPCC and U.S. National Climate Assessment predictions alarmist, since all alarmist predictions have been proved wrong (you say).
You accuse Chris of raising straw man arguments, but your argument is simply a massive straw man. The fallacy is described as “giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by that opponent.”
You argue that the most extreme predictions are the argument, then knock down that argument. Since the argument is not that ice free conditions will be existing by 2015, you have knocked down a straw man.
To prove me wrong, you could simply state the argument that you think has been shot down by the failure of the ice to melt entirely so far and so demonstrate that my characterisation of your position of presenting a straw man is wrong.

Chris: 2015 plus 55 is 2070, not 2060. Your proposed bet of ice-free by 2050 is therefore a very good one for dbstealey to take.

seaice, thanks for the correction, I dashed my reply off in the middle of my work day here in Asia and didn’t catch that. You’re right, I’m now giving him a great offer – let’s see what he says. I predict deafening silence or a decline.

dbstealey said: “Chris,
So you’re chickening out, and re-framing things that can’t be verified until 2060.
Pathetic.”
DB, you’re attempts at flipping the argument are laughable. I gave you EXAMPLES of papers that conclude that the Arctic will be ice free beyond 2015. One EXAMPLE stated first ice free could occur between 2016 and 2019, another stated around 2050. These are papers I found by doing a quick search, there are others that state 2035, others 2070, others 2100. You then assume that I believe the 2019 figure. Why? Who knows, you just made it up. There is no re-framing going on, except your ineffective attempt to link me to the conclusions of the 2019 paper.
You’ve stated earlier that Arctic ice is recovering. Therefore, you should be happy to take ANY bet on an ice free Arctic. In fact, I’ll give you 10-1 odds on that 2050 date, which is the date that I believe. Do we have a deal?
Interestingly, below you state that with a date of 2070 I am sure to win the be, which implies you think we will have an ice free Arctic in the future. So what do you believe about Arctic ice, db? Do you have any concrete position about Arctic ice, or just flip flopping ones?

PS to db – I’m still waiting for your reply about the Australia heat wave paper. That’s now 4 times I’ve posted it for you without any reply.

db,
As usual, you avoid a logical defense of your statements by trying to distract and attack. It fools no one, it really doesn’t – it just makes you look like more of a fool than everyone already knows you are. I think it’s time to give you an additional middle name, db. Henceforth, rather than dbstealey, you shall be known as dbostealey, o for obfuscation. It’s your standard technique for trying to avoid direct questions.
Once again, you didn’t ask me when I thought the Arctic would be free of ice. YOU cherry picked a date from several i quoted to you from papers written by other people. I did not say which of those I agreed with, YOU chose one. I then offered a 10-1 bet to you based on the date when I think it will occur. Since you, in the past, have said that Arctic ice is increasing, you should have jumped at this bet. But you didn’t, because, as the saying goes, you are all hat and no cattle, you don’t stand behind what you believe.

db, there is a thing called work. I’m at it, and therefore will reply to RA’s comments later. Likewise for yours. I live in Asia so am basically 12 hours off from folks in the US.

dbstealy and Chris – this wager could be resolved. dbstealy reasonaby does not want to wait until 2050 to resolve the bet, and Chris obviously does not want to bet on a position that he does not hold. However, there is a way out. Chris says the ice is shrinking, dbstealy says it is growing. There must be some terms that would distinguish between these two positions that would be resolved in a much shorter time than waiting until all th eice has gone.
How about the average of the next three years will be either lower or higher than the last three years? That is if the average sea ice minumum (15% coverage) of 2016, 2017 and 2018 are lower than 2013, 2014 and 2015, Chris wins. If it is higher, dbstealy wins.
It is a bit reckless to gamble on such short term periods, when the true signal can easily be hidden by normal fluctuations. However, the underlying trend must give an advantage to the correct predictor. If both parties are preparedto wait a little longer, then the outcome should be more certain.
If these terms are not satisfactory, perhaps you could suggest more agreeable terms, and why.

dbstealy. You have failed to understand Chris’s position, and are now running away. Chris has stated his position clearly – ice is reducing and will probably be gone (in summer) by 2050. You have stated your position – ice is growing, not shrinking. If you want to see who is chicken, see who is not prepared to bet to back up their position.
You introduced a straw man that ice will be gone by 2019. No-one here holds that position, so not taking that bet is proof of nothing.
I will bet on the terms I stated previously. So how about it? If you think ice is growing, why not take the terms of my bet? We can resolve it in 3 years. I am prepared to wait that long. We can use the longbets .org platform to ensure fair play.
Serious offer, with mechanism to undertake it. How about it? Do you have the cojones, or are you chicken?

db: Forget Chris, how about my bet with you? You claim ice is growing, I think it is shrinking. My bet is resolved in three years, not in 2050. I proposed a third party that oversees the bet to ensure fair play. What are you afraid of? Are you chicken perhaps? Not too sure of your ground?
You cannot win this one by distractions – put up or shut up and accept you have lost the argument.

dbstealy. Whatever your bluster and distractions you are not prepared to back up your assertion that the Arctic sea ice is recovering. I offered clear terms and a mechanism for organising the bet. My position is the ice is shrinking. We will decide the wimnner based on the minimum sea ice area averaged over the next three years and simpoly see if it is bigger than the same averaged over the last three years. All you do is talk about other things and avoid the proposed bet. From this I take it that you in fact do believe that the sea ice is shrinking, since you will not bet against that position.
You criticised me for arguing Chris’s position (“And who are you to be speaking for him, his big brother?” you said). So leave Chris and your conversation with him out of this. Is the Arctic ice shrinking or growing? That is my disagreement with you. Simple: I say shrinking, if you don’t agree then make yourself some easy money. If you do agree, then don’t take the bet. Your call.

dbstealy. Please stop using distractions and bluster. Do you agree that Arctic sea ice is shrinking? If not, then take the bet. If you agree with me, just say so and we can move on. I say the minimum Arctic sea ice extent averaged over the next 3 years will be less than the average of the last 3 years.
You said “Looks to me like sea ice is growing” and “Arctic sea ice is growing year-over-year” and “despite the wild-eyed scare stories, Arctic ice only dipped for a few years. It is recovering now.” Why not back up these assertions?
You offered Chris a bet that would be resolved in 2019, so it can’t be that you are not prepared to wait that long.
You said “You… have nothing more than baseless assertions. That’s why you fail.”
You said “Easy money — if you’re right. So as they say, put up or shut up. The ball is in your court. Fish or cut bait. Shi… well, you get the idea. ☺”
OK – then win some easy money if all I have are baseless assertions. If you don’t, it really, really looks like you think the Arctic sea ice is shrinking, despite your baseless assertions that it is growing.

Posts are vanishing, so apologies if this appears more than once.
dbstealy. Why not stand by your position? If you think Arctic sea ice is growing, simply take my bet and win yourself some money.
You said “Honesty is not in you. See, I made the offer, chump. Take it or leave it. That’s how it works. You don’t get to invent something else in its place. That won’t fly, it’s just your way of tap-dancing around the fact that you’ve got nothin’.”
There is nothing dishonest about my offer. You offered some other bet to someone else. I am not interested in that. Arctic sea ice, shrinking or growing? I didn’t pluck this out of the air – I quoted you saying it was growing several times in this discussion. Why not stand by you claims? If your evidence is so strong then you will win. Take the bet. If you don’t, it looks like you are tap dancing around the fact that you got nothin’.